Gaining My Edge by Brent

Gaining My Edge by Brent - August 2017 Scholarship Essay

The question itself “if you were a college professor, what class would you teach and why?’” can certainly lead to some commonplace answers, especially among millennials, especially in this current climate. Maybe it’s a law and politics course to educate the kids; you know? Lead to a better future! Or it could be an environmental science course. Get the info out there about climate change! Educate the kids; you know? Lead to a better future! Or it could be a woman’s studies course. The future is female; you know? Educate the kids! Lead to a better future!
I think these answers are problematic, not just from their generic nature and not just for their dubious use of semicolons. These answers are very shallow, click-baity (or scholarship-baity) half-baked ideas on improving the world, yet little emphasis is put on what you’re interested in, or, more importantly, good at. If you’re teaching a class on law and politics, you’re going to have to talk about the court process and the Bill of Rights; it’s certainly more than just talking about Trump’s hair. With all this in mind, my class of choice to teach is 20th Century Novel.
As an English major, I find myself very qualified to teach this class, to start, and my actual interest in the course helps as well. While many people in my generation get caught up on the new Netflix dramas, I’ve invested my time heavily in 20th century writers, from Fitzgerald and Salinger to Roth and Pynchon all the way up to Franzen and Wallace. I think this enthusiasm will improve the class’ quality tenfold. Sorry. Maybe not the enthusiasm, but maybe specifically my spin on 20th century writers. A big problem I have with college courses--English courses, especially--is that they seem to be going under the same formula. Sure, you can choose your books, but after the books are chosen, it goes reading assignment, lecture, section discussion, paper, wash, rinse, and repeat. I want to take what I personally found helpful to my acquired knowledge and interest of these books and apply it to the classroom.
And that, specifically, includes a few things. For one, cultural context is extremely helpful. Now, cultural context is sometimes brought up in these classes, but it’s mostly subjected to prefacing the book, more as a means of introducing the book’s story and less as a means of introducing the book’s story within the context of the time period. 20th century fiction is crucial when put in the context of its time period, and I’ve seen many people not “get” classics such as ‘The Catcher In The Rye’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ because they don’t understand its context in the time period. And that makes a lot of sense! It’s tough for an allegory to stand on its own. Just try listening to “Losing My Edge” by LCD Soundsystem without the context of the time it was written. It’s boring blabber.
So the cultural context should be engaged constantly, not just in the beginning. And I’ve found that literature can help describe a time period much better than any history book can. And if we’re talking about classes that will “improve the future”, having a class that can do history better than history? And what’s that cliche sentence again? “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it?”
And I think that brings me back to my main-ish point. The best classes aren’t determined by the subject matter itself but what one can get out of the subject matter. And 20th century fiction is just such a cornucopia of knowledge and intrigue. One can engage in these subjective, seemingly never-ending discourses with co-eds. Alone, this is much more fun than, say, learning about checks and balances, but what is gained is critical thinking skills and the knowledge of effective means of discourse, two very important things in this ever-changing world.
Personally, I’ve just gotten so much more out of 20th century literature than I’ve had with any social or historical class. Those classes give you a framework, but how do you create your worldview? In an interview with Howard Stern, Seth Rogen said that the only way to change someone’s opinion is to sit down with them for thirty minutes and have a discussion. What better to enhance and diversify your worldview than sitting down for multiple intervals of thirty minutes of reading? So, to wrap things up, if I were to teach this class, I’d engage in fascinating literature, scintillating discourses, and ultimately have my worldview changed? Sure. I’ll take that over Law and Politics.